Prediction and Responsiveness in Behavioural Marital Therapy

Abstract

There is empirical evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of behavioural marital therapy. However the issues of predicting outcome and the responsiveness of particular marital problems to behavioural treatments, while crucial, have been largely ignored. Forty-five couples requesting therapy were consecutively assigned to either conjoint treatment, couples group treatment or treatment of one partner alone to ascertain whether a screening profile could be developed that would predict treatment outcome. In addition, the presenting target problems were analysed to investigate their responsiveness to treatment. The effects of the treatment were evaluated using measures of marital satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, presenting marital target problems and by an independent assessor. Using demographic and treatment variables as regressors, the analyses revealed that the coefficients were not on the whole statistically significant in predicting outcome. The trend analysis of target problems showed that conjoint treatment produced a more rapid rate of change compared to the other treatments. In addition, particular marital problems failed to respond to the treatment suggesting that the behavioural approach may require modification in the treatment of these problems.